B.C. LABOUR LEADER GOODWIN SHOT DEAD
Policeman says it was in self-defence; miners stop authorities from moving body from Cumberland
One hundred years ago, a policeman shot and killed labour leader Ginger Goodwin in the woods near Cumberland on Vancouver Island.
Dan Campbell claimed that he shot in self-defence after Goodwin raised a rifle toward him. But, to this day, you’d be hard-pressed to find many people in Cumberland who believe that.
“I don’t believe Campbell’s story, but it’s hard to say (what happened), not being any eyewitnesses,” said Brian Charlton of the Cumberland Museum and Archives. “I believe they did go out to shoot him. Campbell even said that himself. He was predisposed, I guess, to shoot first and ask questions later.”
Goodwin was hiding near Comox Lake because he had been drafted into the Canadian Army for the First World War. As a socialist he was opposed to the war, and refused to fight.
Like many coal miners, Goodwin had health problems, and had initially been classified as unfit for military service. But that changed when he led a strike in Trail.
“Ginger Goodwin’s health wasn’t the best, he had a bit of TB I think, so when they brought in conscription he was classified as not fit,” Charlton relates.
“But after the successful strike, he was called up again and all of a sudden now he was fit to be sent to active duty. Ginger Goodwin was a pacifist, and he decided he wasn’t going to be conscripted. (So) he headed back to Cumberland, where he had a lot of friends.
“There were some other people, I guess you’d call them draft dodgers, that went (into the hills). There’s a place called Cruickshank River, in the back of Comox Lake, and they basically camped out. They were helped and fed by the villagers in Cumberland. Ginger was a popular guy.”
Dan Campbell had been kicked off the B.C. provincial police force for trying to extort money. But he was hired as a special constable when the authorities decided to go after the draft evaders.
Campbell killed Goodwin with a shot that went through Goodwin’s wrist and neck. A doctor at an inquiry estimated the shot had come from only 10 feet away. Campbell was investigated for manslaughter, but was cleared.
Miners heard about the shooting and stopped the police from spiriting Goodwin’s body out of Cumberland. A couple of thousand people marched with Goodwin’s body down Dunsmuir Avenue the day he was buried.
An unknown person made a gravestone for Goodwin that called him “a worker’s friend.”
“It’s kind of funny, because it’s got a hammer and sickle (at the top), but it’s sort of backwards,” said Charlton. “It was a real homemade operation, but sincere. That’s the kind of respect that he got.”
Vancouver labour responded to Goodwin’s death by staging a daylong general strike on Aug. 2, 1918, the first general strike in Canadian history.
Born on May 19, 1887 in Yorkshire, England, Goodwin had bright red hair, hence the nickname Ginger. He came to Canada when he was 19, initially working in the coal mines at Glace Bay, N.S. In 1910, he moved to the Kootenays and then Cumberland.
He was shocked by the conditions in Vancouver Island’s coal mines, and became involved in a long and bitter strike from 1912 to 1914. Blacklisted by the mine owners, he moved to Trail, where he worked in a smelter.
In 1916, he was elected secretary of the Trail Mill and Smelterman’s Union, and the following year was elected vice-president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. Goodwin led a strike at the Trail mill in 1917, which many believe led to his draft problems.
Goodwin became B.C. labour’s greatest martyr, the subject of books and films. On July 27, B.C.’s NDP government proclaimed Ginger Goodwin Day to mark the 100th anniversary of his “untimely death.”
The NDP has also renamed Hwy. 19 near Cumberland Ginger Goodwin Way. A previous NDP government had done so in the 1990s, but the provincial Liberals changed it when they got into power in 2001.
Every June, the Cumberland Museum stages a Miners Memorial. This year, they recreated an iconic photo of Goodwin’s funeral procession.
“We had a brass band, pallbearers with a recreation of (Goodwin’s) white coffin,” said Charlton.
“A theatre group had everybody dressed up in period costume (circa) 1918. Behind them there were people dressed in regular street clothes, and behind that there was people carrying union flags and banners.
“There was about 300 or 400 people there. It made quite the sight, because there was a bit of a wind and you could see the flags waving. I got goosebumps.”